(19)
(11) EP 1 431 798 A3

(12) EUROPEAN PATENT APPLICATION

(88) Date of publication A3:
17.11.2004 Bulletin 2004/47

(43) Date of publication A2:
23.06.2004 Bulletin 2004/26

(21) Application number: 03258003.7

(22) Date of filing: 18.12.2003
(51) International Patent Classification (IPC)7: G02B 27/01, G01S 3/78
(84) Designated Contracting States:
AT BE BG CH CY CZ DE DK EE ES FI FR GB GR HU IE IT LI LU MC NL PT RO SE SI SK TR
Designated Extension States:
AL LT LV MK

(30) Priority: 19.12.2002 US 326158

(71) Applicant: Accenture Global Services GmbH
8200 Schaffhausen (CH)

(72) Inventor:
  • Dempski, Kelly L.
    Evanston, IL 60202 (US)

(74) Representative: McLeish, Nicholas Alistair Maxwell 
Boult Wade Tennant Verulam Gardens 70 Gray's Inn Road
London WC1X 8BT
London WC1X 8BT (GB)

   


(54) Arbitrary object tracking in augmented reality applications


(57) The arbitrary object tracking relates to the field of augmented reality applications. Video images of objects in a real-world environment are taken from the perspective of a viewer in the real-world environment. The user's field of view of the real-world environment may be captured in the video images, which may be processed to select a segment of the video image or an object depicted in the video image. An image such as a computer-generated annotation or graphic overlay may be registered to the segment, and therefore track the segment from the user's field of view of the segment, without prior knowledge of the spatial relationship of the segment to the real-world environment. The computer-generated image tracks the segment according to a centroid for an interframe difference of the video image associated with the selected object and may be displayed in the user's field of view or in the video image. As the segment moves or the viewer's perspective of the real-environment changes, the computer-generated image will track the movement of the segment with respect to the video image.







Search report